HISTORICAL SURVEY 7 



cellent as the goat may have been in the economy of the small 

 herdsman in a predominantly pastoral region with sparse 

 population, its value disappeared with the growth of larger private 

 holdings under more settled conditions and in regions where pastures 

 are more luxuriant. Its utility was further reduced by the 

 development of arable cultivation which arose in North- Western 

 Europe, where larger domestic animals could easily be raised, and 

 where, moreover, the products of forest and marsh in game, such 

 as deer, wild pigs and wild fowl, could be relied on to furnish some 

 supplies of fresh meat. 



The pig, on the other hand, which is said to have been among 

 the first animals to be domesticated by man, 1 has always been an 

 important meat-producing animal, owing to its wide climatic 

 range and its capacity of thriving on a great variety of feedstuffs. 

 It must have existed in Europe with the earliest human settlements, 

 often, however, in a semi-wild state, roaming the oak and beech 

 forests. Indeed; until the rise of a widespread dairying industry 

 on modern lines, such forests, together with rough pastures, furnished 

 the principal supplies of feed-material, even for the herds of domestic 

 swine. 



With the exception of the turkey, imported from the New World, 

 but domesticated in the Old, the various kinds of domestic fowl, 

 especially geese, appear to have been known in Europe from 

 early times. 



The most remarkable fact in connection with the history of animal 

 food products in Europe, is the general advance in quality, regularity 

 and variety of supplies during the last two centuries. Game, 

 formerly an important source of winter supplies, is relatively less 

 abundant now than in the Middle Ages, but previous to the in- 

 vention of firearms, about the 15th century, the difficulties of killing 

 wild birds, and even animals, must have made this source of meat 

 supply somewhat uncertain, at any rate, for the ordinary people. 

 Apart, however, from game supplies, there has been a great advance 

 in all directions. From a few kinds of animals producing flesh of 

 poor quality several centuries ago, there has been progress to a 

 considerable variety of specialised breeds, producing meat of the 

 best quality yet known. There has been a great gain also in 

 regularity and certainty of supplies 2 from one season to another, 

 and from year to year. Under primitive and even medieval forms 

 of husbandry, stock perished wholesale during bad seasons when 

 fodder failed, and at the end of every summer there was necessarily 

 a general slaughter of meat-producing animals that could not be 

 carried over the winter. This meant that salt meat had to be the 

 principal item in the animal foodstuffs consumed during the winter. 

 With the great general increase in dairying, there has been an 



1 So stated on authority by Schmoller, Grundriss Der Allgemeinen V-olks- 

 wirtsckaft, Vol. I. p. 197. 



2 For a detailed account of the marked changes in this direction during the 

 last fifty years, see Chap, xii., p. 182, below. 



